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World mobile phone shipments up 25%

Upgrades, emerging markets drive Q3 volumes up

World+Dog bought more mobile phones during Q3 2004, market watcher Strategy Analytics (SA) said this week. Shipments from vendors reached 168m units, up 24.7 per cent from the year-ago quarter.

The researcher reaffirmed its earlier forecast that some 670m handsets will ship worldwide in 2004. It said the Q3 shipments were led by "surging" replacement/upgrade business in established markets and booming demand in newer territories.

Looking ahead, SA said it expects 2005 shipments to reach 726m units, representing an increase of eight per cent - well down on the 30 per cent growth seen between 2004 and 2003, if momentum is maintained through Q4 2004. The decline will follow slowing upgrade monochrome-to-colour sales.

The winners during the third quarter of this year were Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson, who all achieved trend-exceeding growth of 51.3, 55.3 and 50.7 per cent, respectively.

The losers - if a growing market at such a rate can be said to have losers - were Nokia, Motorola and Siemens. While all three saw shipments increase between Q3 2004 and Q3 2003 - by 13, 15.4 and 4.2 per cent, respectively - they nevertheless saw their shares of the market decline.

Nokia is still the world's largest phone seller, but its share of the market fell from 33.8 per cent in Q3 2003 to 30.6 per cent in Q3 2004. Likewise, Siemens was down to 7.5 per cent from 8.9 per cent, and Motorola's share dropped from 15 per cent to 13.9 per cent. That leaves it only fractionally above Samsung's 13.5 per cent, giving the South Korean combine a very good chance of taking the world's number two slot this Christmas.

Motorola's market share has steadily declined during the past three quarters, SA's numbers show, while Samsung's has grown consistently over the past four. Q3 saw Nokia get back over the 30 per cent barrier. ®